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Focus Forward

What happens if you focus on your flaws? Well, it’s like going through life facing backward. Why did I do that? I’m such an idiot! What is wrong with me? We are completely focused on the past.

Meanwhile, the planet is moving forward. It’s progressing. Surprise, this is not an episode of Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone! Everyone else is not suspended in space, indefinitely waiting for you to get your shit together.

What if you acknowledge your weaknesses? Briefly. Go ahead and touch on them for a moment then move on.

If time is moving forward and you’re still looking backward, you’re completely missing out on the present AND not giving yourself the opportunity to direct your future. Even if the planet COULD pause for you go ahead to beat yourself up, how long would you need? A few hours? A couple of weeks? Months?

Instead, be like George Burns who said, “I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”

Life Note:

Be honest with yourself about your weaknesses but don’t linger on them.

Focus on what you enjoy; what you are good at. If you don’t know what that is, it’s likely because you’ve been spending way too long focusing on your weaknesses or past screw-ups.

All of my wins have come from leveraging strengths instead of fixing weaknesses.

– Tim Ferriss

https://tim.blog/

The Hip Hop Reflection

– For those of you also surrounded by laundry

I never thought I would be a stay-at-home mom.

I never thought I would have FOUR children.

I never thought I would decide to home-school those children.

Yet here I am, almost a decade into my life as a mom… and I’ve intentionally made all of these choices.

About five years ago, I was sitting alone on this gross brown rental couch in New Orleans, surrounded by several loads of laundry, watching old “Friends” episodes while Jaimie was working late. The kids were finally asleep; one in a red plastic race-car bed, one in a pack-n-play next to him, and the third in another pack-n-play in a bathroom. (Remember, no judging!)

And this was a huge step up from the creepy haunted house we had just left, with the cockroaches (not ghost-roaches, real ones) stovetop burners that magically turned on in the middle of the night, and a creepy long-hair-girl face who showed up on the screen of my baby monitor one night!

My universe shifted, and the shit hit the fan, when my youngest started walking. I woke up to the glaring fact that I now had four sons and a husband, no career, two worthless masters degrees, a perpetual extra 10lbs, and an intense feeling that I had no individual identity. Major first world problem, I get it. I had been through a divorce in my early 20s, bankruptcy, an eating disorder… but none of that hit me like this hit me.I believe now it was because I was swimming in guilt.

I should be so happy! I should be so grateful! I should just chill out and realize my children were still so young. I should…I should…I should.I wanted to do SO MUCH more, but what? And EVERYone I complained to seemed (to me) to be telling me to chill the f*ck out, that my kids were still so young, enjoy this time, blah blah blah blah. I couldn’t relate and could not take that advice. Not only did it not help me, it made me feel guilty that I couldn’t just do what they said and enjoy the moment and be grateful. What was wrong with me?The light of a solution started seeping in when I took my two oldest sons to a hip–hop dance class. I watched them through the glass and recorded every move on my phone.

Later that night, I noticed something that would forever change my life. In the video, you could see a reflection of my face in the glass. In it, I had a giant goofy smile plastered across my face.At that moment I resolved to find whatever would cause me to make that face more often.

Seems like such a silly little thing, but it often doesn’t take much. It doesn’t have to be a terrible medical diagnosis or a major car accident to have a huge impact in your life.

The key was this; I finally realized that what makes me happy, doesn’t necessarily make others happy and vice versa. That’s why it is so incredibly important to make decisions for ourselves, according to our own goals and values.

Allowing judgement in, whether from others, from our culture, from society at large, or from our own psyche, will only distract us from achieving our goals. And make us feel really crappy.

Unfortunately, we’ve become so accustomed to judging and competing and comparing ourselves to one another. Maybe it’s been in our DNA from tribal times, and served us well then? It happens all the time, and we are all (women especially) very good at it. But it doesn’t mean that we cannot call ourselves out on this destructive and bitchy behavior. In fact, now more than ever, we should put down our weapons and not only be kind to one another, but be kind to ourselves. Be kind. And listen.

(One of my “happy-making-moments” is now going to my own dance classes. Here’s a quick video of one of my hip hop classes…I’m the one on the far left.)

Life Fishing

-For those obsessive goal-setters who LOVE lists

I know, I know… the metaphor may seem strange. Especially since I’ve only fished once in my life and it was quite unsuccessful. I’m pretty sure I cried on the way home because my cousin Michael had caught all the fish and I had to sit in the back seat because he “got car sick”. The audacity!

Anyway… In seeking your goals, dreams, plans for your future, are you using a spear to catch your fish, or a fishing line?

Most of us list-junkies have become SO incredibly effective at using spears to catch fish, we’ve accomplished quite a lot. We see our target, filter out unimportant distractions, sharpen the spear, get in position, determine the exact right moment, then…. STRIKE with brute determination and physical force! YES! We’re awesome!! (Insert little dance where arms go around in a horizontal circle while you alternately lean left to right. No no no. Not like that! Ok, ok, let’s just move on.)

The pride and satisfaction that follows can be like a drug. (Most likely oxytocin and dopamine.)

Few things compare to the high after spearing a big fish. Hell, even a small fish is a big deal. Honestly, has anyone here ever added an item to your “to do” list that you already completed, just to be able to cross it off heroically? I totally get it. I do it all the time.

The fish represent our goals and dreams. Some are big, some small, some are near, and some we cannot even see. Once we catch them, some are super tasty and delicious, yet others are totally poisonous. (Some fish are poisonous, right?! Otherwise this analogy is not quite as cool as I think. Yes, I know I can just ask The Google, but sometimes I like to pretend it’s 1987. Ok? And seriously, the music was SO great, right?!)

The problem with using a spear is this; we will only ever catch the fish we can see and can reach, we cannot focus on anything else around us, and it takes a lot of concentration and energy. What if, instead of using a spear, we picked up a fishing line, sat on the bank (with a beer or cup of our favorite coffee and a good book) and waited for the line to tug?

We still need to walk to the lake, pick a spot, set up the line, bait it, and throw it out into the water. We also need to notice and take action when the line catches, then reel it in quickly and steadily. In the meantime though, we just chill. Look around. Enjoy the rest of our life. Watch out for bears. Play with the chinchillas.

The fishing line forces us to focus on the real end-goal, not the specific things you THINK might be right for you. “I want THAT silver fish with the blue speck on its tail!”

If we know, “I want a job that takes me outside, where I can be creative, and work with an amazing and inspiring team of people”; then, we are far more likely to reach our goal. By being too focused and controlling of each and every step along our path, it’s easy to lose sight of the REAL goals.

Is it really that VP position at your current company? Or is it any position that would offer flex-time, a great vacation package, creative control, and an incredible boss? Do you really want to weigh 130 pounds or do you want to be healthy, feel great, and look incredible in your underwear?

Our true goals and dreams in life are the feelings. What do we want to feel on a daily basis? Security? Joy? Excitement? Love? Challenge? If we try to control exactly HOW we get those things, we may not get them at all. We can still succeed in spearing many fish, but we may not end up liking the taste of them and it may not be worth everything we missed out on while we were so busy focusing on the fish swimming around our feet.

If we can let go of our spears and take a fishing line approach to our life goals, then we can enjoy our friends and families, focus on our true end-goals, and save some of our time and energy for hikes and board games and tennis lessons and learning to play the guitar (or anything else you’ve wanted to do since you were 15 years old).

So throw down your spears (carefully) and grab your poles (ahem, you know what I mean) and let’s catch those fish we’ve never even imagined in our wildest dreams!

Side Note:

Recommended temporary treatment for control-junkies… as soon as possible, go to a Korean Spa near you and order a scrub treatment. You’ll find yourself accosted by a sweet Korean woman in black grandma panties, led to a room full of metal tables (kind of like a morgue), then you’ll lay naked on the table while she scrubs several layers of skin from your body and flops you around like a rag-doll. No room for modesty, control, or anything. You just have to let go and take it. I figure it’s like a cheaper, PG-version of those billionaire businessmen who hire dominatrixes. Or does that just happen in movies? I’m not sure.